Maize

Certain that his nightmare had been an omen, either vision from God or the devil, Jean had spent most of the afternoon huddled in his room, his fingers sliding over the beads of his rosary. He had chanted Our Father's, Hail Mary's and had confessed his faith three times like a proper christian did. Even now, out of his room and feeling a little better, he was humming a prayer to himself. ".... sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra...". With the holy words on his lips, Jean headed to the outskirts of the town, walking closer to the first patch of corn he could find. The large husks swayed in the light wind. Jean squinted his eyes as he tried to figure out of the plants were possessed.

A small woman walked up nearby, still a little scuffed and dirty coming back from her part time job. She was curious to see what kind of hunting there might be in the cornfields, but instead she found a very pretty person staring intently at the corn. She watched him for several silent moments, before she sniffed the air, detecting nothing particularly unusual. Then she looked at the corn also.

Finally, her gaze returned to the pretty person as her claws clicked together. "Um... is there something strange in the corn? Did you find huitlacoche?"

Jean turned to face the voice and swore. "Sacrebleu! Sacre Madonna." Recalling that here a monster was likely a kin to him than friend of the fae, the slightly too pretty man recalled his manners as he eyed the beast before him. Hell wrought strange things he mused, shaking his head for a moment. "Sorry. I didn't expect to see you. One of us." He was pretty sure she wasn't the person Imogen had mentioned. So that made four. "Uh, I wouldn't know. Few months back I didn't know it existed. Corn." He hadn't even understood the last word she had uttered, figuring it to be some modern dialect. Just like the guy in Toronto had told him to get lost when he had well known where he was. Or the other guy who had told him to fuck off, when you really didn't do it like that. Or at least Jean hadn't. Then again, this brave new world was full of deviants and heretics. Who knew how they did what.

"I am Jean." he declared matter of factually. "I had a nightmare about these things." he pointed at the corn. "So here I am."

Her ears turned back and she hopped back a few feet when he exclaimed, then freezing and staring at him like he was about to attack. Her posture only eased a little when he apologized. Her eyes were narrowed at him now. Pretty things were usually monsters, she remembered. Her Keeper was the prettiest thing she'd ever seen.

"... You didn't know corn existed?" She finally asked more hesitantly, pupils now huge and watching for signs of violence. She only briefly glanced toward the corn when he mentioned the dream. "... 'M Reina. What kind of nightmare?"

"Nope." Jean shook his head. "Didn't have anything like that where I came from. Nothing like that either." he nodded at the small town, no so far away. "Or anything like this." Jean grabbed the collar of his shirt, giving it a tug. This caused one of his golden curls to fall on his forehead. He tried to chase it way by blowing it out of his sight. "I was born on the lords year fourteen hundred and five, in the castle of Saint Remy, near Orleans." His French was impeccable.

"I saw these in my dream." the former knight replied honestly. "I was walking among them, with something coming after me. A devil, I think. Now I am trying to understand if this was an omen or a warning. Or a foul vision sent by the Devil himself."

"You didn't have small towns or shirts?" She questioned, tilting her head to one side. "Of course, I grew up in the Her Forest, and that didn't have small towns or shirts, either, so I guess I get it."

"... Why do you think it was the devil? I've never seen a devil, so I don't know what one looks like."

"We didn't have running water or electri-city." he pointed out in return. "That there is luxury my family could not fathom." Jean waved his hand in the general direction of the Maize. "I mean, it's not Toronto or Montreal, but they outhouses indoors." In his books, that counted for something. "And they have magic furnaces that get hot when you just press button. And those metal things on the wall that keep the house warm."

"Because that is what the Devil would do." he flashed her a confident smile. "The old deceiver leads people into sin. Gives them false visions to lure them into doom and damnation! Wretched thing he is." For a moment his eyes were brimming with fire.

"Ohhhhh... I guess that makes more sense. Heaters are neat. It's nice to be warm on command."

"He sounds like fae," she said. "They look pretty, but they're monsters inside, and they trick and lure people. If a monster is hunting you, you gotta become a scarier monster. Or maybe get a scary monster friend. Then either it'll run away or you can kill it." She nodded confidently.

She looked up and studied him for a moment. "You don't look like you could become a monster easy unless you're hiding it. Everything would probably just want to mate with you. If a predator is hunting you, you're gonna need a monster friend, I think."

"Yeah, truly a blessing." Jean muttered. "Don't get me started on those small ovens that sound a bit like cats. Purring and then going 'ding'. I mean, cats don't go 'ding'." confident in his ability to explain the wonders of the modern world, Jean was sure she'd know what he meant. "Devil. You call the Fae, I call them Devils. The bible speaks of the devil. Even Satan dresses himself as an angel of light. So it is no wonder that the people serving him disguise themselves as servants of righteousness." he added, nodding seriously. "Looks mean nothing." Which was sorta ironical, considering how he looked like a Greek statue. Unfortunately, Jean could also speak.

"That is because I am no monster. I am Jean Beuparlant... um, Wellspeak. Former knight of the Charles the seventh! I am servant of the God, may his will be done." he sounded maybe a bit too sure about himself. That was when her words sunk in. "Fornication! Gaah. Where has the world gone when even the tormented speak of fornication like there was nothing to it."

"... Microwaves?" She guessed. They hummed and went ding, and she'd encountered them during her brief time back in the real world. "Though I did once meet a cat that went ding. He was pretty cool. I hope he got out."

"Immensely powerful beings that want you to play out your life by their rules and have realms outside reality where they take people. I guess it doesn't matter whether you call them fae or devils or whatever." She remembered her parents taking her to church and talking about "Jesus", who sounded about the same by what she remembered.

"What's a fornication?"